INTRODUCTION

QUESTIONS

  1. What are the leading causes of death since 2001?
  2. Which state had the most amount of deaths in the US?
  3. What was the leading cause of death in California?
  4. How has the cause of heart disease deaths changed over time?
  5. How has the cause of cancer deaths changed over time?
  6. We know the adjusted death rate for the data, but what does the rate look like when we subtract “all causes’?
  7. What is the death rate by cause and state?
  8. What is the age-adjusted death rate for heart disease?

Variables in the dataset:

Leading Causes of Death Since 2001

This is the total summation of all Deaths from 1999 to 2017. We can see that there are many deaths due to Heart Disease and Cancer. The least amount of deaths being by suicide.

Total Deaths in Each State

The total deaths through every state from 1999 to 2017. California had the most amount of deaths, this can be due to the high population in California. Then we see that Florida and Texas follow up behind California. Even though Florida has a smaller population than Texas, the amount of deaths overpassed Texas’ deaths.

This heatmap is representing the percentage that each disease accounts for in each state. This percentage is each of these diseases total amount of deaths over the total amount of deaths. We can see that in some states there is a higher percentage of people dying from a certain disease than others. For example we see a higher percentage in unintentional injuries in Alaska than any other state. We can also that heart disease is a higher cause of death in New York.

Leading Cause of Deaths in California

Since California had the highest amount of deaths in the United States, we chose to take a closer look. As we can see, Heart Disease and Cancer have been the leading causes.

Changes Throughout the Years

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We decided to look at all the causes in one big graph and see which ones have changes the most throughout time. We can see that heart disease started off with a high amount of deaths and has slowly decreased throughout time. We can also see that cancer is having a linearly increase in deaths through the years. For the other diseases, we see a constant amount of deaths, some decreasing like stroke, and some increasing like unintentional injuries and Alzheimer’s disease.

How has the number of heart disease deaths changed over time?

Year Total Deaths
1999 1,450,384
2000 1,421,520
2001 1,400,284
2002 1,393,894
2003 1,370,178
2004 1,304,972
2005 1,304,182
2006 1,263,272
2007 1,232,134
2008 1,233,656
2009 1,198,826
2010 1,195,378
2011 1,193,154
2012 1,199,422
2013 1,222,210
2014 1,228,696
2015 1,267,684
2016 1,270,520
2017 1,294,914

This plot show how Heart Disease has been decreasing throughout time. The United States started bringing in more awareness to Heart Disease and people started reaching out for help. We can see that from 2010 and 2012, we see a dip in deaths, this is due to the Million Hearts being launched by the United States Department of Health. Their main goal was to prevent 1 million heart diseases by 2017. We can see this dip in the plot above. Before 2010, This can be due to people making better choices for themselves, such as not smoking and better eating habits.

How has the number of cancer deaths changed over time?

Year Total Deaths
1999 1,099,676
2000 1,106,182
2001 1,107,536
2002 1,114,542
2003 1,113,804
2004 1,107,776
2005 1,118,624
2006 1,119,776
2007 1,125,750
2008 1,130,938
2009 1,135,256
2010 1,149,486
2011 1,153,382
2012 1,165,246
2013 1,169,762
2014 1,183,400
2015 1,191,860
2016 1,196,076
2017 1,198,216

In this data we can see that the deaths caused by cancer keep increasing throughout the years. We can see that there is a dip in 2004, this is due to some states statistical data not meeting the requirements to be included to the US data. Since this happened, the amount of deaths decreased due to some states not meeting the requirements to input their data.

We know the adjusted death rate for the data, but what does the rate look like when we subtract “all causes’?

State Year Total Deaths Known Cause Deaths Unclassified Deaths
Alabama 2017 53,238 39,366 13,872
Alaska 2017 4,411 3,118 1,293
Arizona 2017 57,758 42,928 14,830
Arkansas 2017 32,588 25,233 7,355
California 2017 268,189 206,761 61,428
Colorado 2017 38,063 27,626 10,437
Connecticut 2017 31,312 22,103 9,209
Delaware 2017 9,178 6,902 2,276
District of Columbia 2017 4,965 3,581 1,384
Florida 2017 203,636 152,459 51,177

This plot represents the total amount of deaths through these diseases, but also the amount of unexplained deaths. The unexplained deaths can be due to the data being specifically based on the top 10 deaths in the United States. The total amount of deaths is from all residents death certificates that were filed through this time.

What is age adjusted death rate?

  • Different states or regions have different age structures.

  • Older populations naturally have higher death rates so comparing raw death rates across states would be misleading.

  • To make fair comparisons across the states, public health stats use age adjustment instead of uing raw numbers.

What is the death rate by cause and state?

This represents the Death Rate in each of the states in the United States for the cause Heart Disease. As we can see Mississippi has the highest death rate through all the years. Mississippi has made changes for the community such as The Mississippi Chronic Illness Coalition (MCIC) to help improve the amount of deaths due to Heart disease. There is a whole plan of trying to prevent Heart Disease throughout these years. (https://msdh.ms.gov/msdhsite/_static/resources/3840.pdf, MSDH) This link provides more information on their plans to prevent heart disease.

How do the Amount of Deaths and Age Adjusted Death Rate Compare?

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When looking at all these graphs throughout the time, we can see the amount of deaths and the Age Adjusted Death Rate together. We see that through many of the death causes like CLRD, Stroke, Diabetes, Influeza and Pneumonia there has been a decrease throughout time. We see a huge decrease in the cause stroke also. Strokes can be caused if you have diabetes, it is an underlining of strokes because it can damage your blood vessels and cause your blood to cloth. We can see that diabetes has also decrease. Therefore these two are somewhat reflecting off of each other to an extent.

A Closer Look Into Heart Disease and Cancer

When we look at this data, we can notice that there has been a change in Heart Disease and Cancer throughout these years. When I searched it up a bit more, it says that there can be changes throughout the years due to better technology. Due to better technology, these diseases are faster to detect. Therefore the age gap between the amount of deaths is closing in. Creating a greater percentage for those who have an older population. While deaths may be high, this can be due to the population increasing over the time.

A Closer Look Into Florida

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While presenting we were asked about Florida specifically, mainly about the age in Florida. We were not given ages, but we can look at the Age Adjusted Death Rate and see that the percentages have increased. Alzheimer’s disease is mainly diagnosed on people of older age. (Ages 65+) This disease has had an increase in Florida, so yes we can say that older people do live in Florida. Before though, not many people. The Age Adjusted Death Rate didn’t see in increase until 2011, therefore now there are probably more older people moving to Florida.

LIMITATION

This project has been very interesting to work on. There are some limitations on it. I think it would’ve been better if our data also included ages. We think this would’ve helped a lot in some of the questions that we were receiving from people. Ages play a big roll into these diseases, we are given a bit by the Age Adjusted Death Rate but not to the fullest (Specifics on age range). I also think that it would’ve been nice to have the specific type of Cancer. We are given a more generalized name for Cancer, it is all in one category instead of being a general Cancer name and a specific Cancer name.

SUMMARY

Through this project, we were able to see each of these diseases, and how many people die in every state. No matter what state it was, it had a high amount of heart disease and cancer deaths. There are many movements that the United States and your state have provided to prevent these disease. (or atleast help identify them) We hope through this people can take action on their own health, because many of these disease can now be identified, especially now that technology has grown as the time comes.

These are some links to help you find the help you need. - Heart Disease (https://millionhearts.hhs.gov/) - Cancer (https://www.cancer.gov/)